December 29, 2017

 Today was a nice relaxing day. I got seven and a half hours of sleep and I spent my morning looking at funny pictures on the internet and listening to the audiobook of A Study In Charlotte by Brittany Cavallaro. I also sent a couple emails and did some research on a small piano keyboard for my friend who's currently deployed. He just got back to the boat after having a nice break in Dubai. I think he's been there twice now, and I will probably never get anywhere close. Other than getting paid to fly around in jets, the next best thing about the NAVY has to be the opportunities to see the world.

During and after lunch I continued to listen to the audiobook and then watched some YouTube videos. Later in the afternoon I played CoD: WW2 and pulled the trigger on prestiging for the third time. The best part about prestiging is that for the first little while, before you're able to unlock and setup up your usual loadouts, you can blame your poor performance on the lack of loadouts. I kind of like it, though, because it gives me a chance to try out some of the guns that I quickly ignore when I unlock the guns I actually like to use.

After dinner, I went back to playing CoD: WW2. I decided to try working on unlocking camos for the final sniper rifle (which is actually the default unlocked sniper rifle). It's more like a semi-auto assault rifle than a sniper rifle because it's at least a two-shot kill to the torso, and I think maybe three or more shots if you're below that. It really forces you to go for headshots, or spam the trigger and hope for the best (which is usually my technique). And I put the 4x scope on it instead of the sniper scope, which makes it even more like an assault rifle. It is going to take forever to unlock the camos because I have to get at least 100 one-shot kills in order to unlock the first set and then it will get more challenging after that, which is why I have been putting it off. I played several games exclusively with the gun and my score, regardless of the gamemode, was awful. It's just not made for a run-and-gun style of play, which is kind of what I have adopted by almost exclusively using SMGs.

I was playing 24/7 Carentan because for the next few days they're doing that map with double XP for the soldier, weapon, and division, which obviously helps you level up faster. I eventually wanted to actually make progress toward some of the daily/weekly orders and contracts I had, so I created a class that included an SMG with the sniper rifle, which tends to be my go-to loadout. That way I could play mostly with the SMG but take shots with the sniper when necessary. For the last three or four games that I played I got into the perfect lobby. I was at the top of the scoreboard each time and I felt like I was actually good at the game. That's a much better feeling than getting steamrolled.

Now I need to get to bed because it is late and I have been distracted by a livestream for far too long.

December 28, 2017

 Last night I got eight and a half hours of sleep and it was great.

I spent the first three hours at work upstairs. I listened to music while reading news articles, answered several phone calls from the librarian at the reference desk because she was working on social media posts for next semester. She kind of got put in charge of that stuff while we're in between PR people and it's stressing her out just a tad bit. I also watched the opening and closing keynotes for the LibraryCon webinar thing. I tried watching one of the sessions but the sound was bad and the whole thing was just really awkward. There were three or four “panel” members that were each in their own homes and the panel leader kept asking questions to no one in particular, so every time multiple people would start to answer and then there was an awkward pause until someone would jump in again. It made me uncomfortable, so I switched back to music and read the local newspaper.

I was on desk for an hour after that. I talked to my coworkers a little bit and then I finalized my biography display signs for next month and sent them over to the printer.

When I got back from dinner I had a walkthrough and ran into the teen librarian as she was leaving. One of her hands was bright blue. She had posted the cap on her new pen and was spinning it around absentmindedly as she was helping a patron. The problem with this is that it is a piston filler pen and while messing with the cap she ended up activating the piston and pushed all the ink out of the pen. I thought that was pretty funny. I brought my bottle of ink back to work today because she ran through what was in her pen already. And then after the posting incident, she was able to refill it for a third time.

After my walkthrough I went and printed off the display signs. I forgot to specify which folder when I sent them to the printer so it took me awhile to find my prints but I did eventually and got them printed. I had two more walkthroughs after that and in between I was able to finish the only library magazine I had in my box.

Then I was on desk for the last two hours. The most interesting thing in that time was helping a patron with the microfilm machine. He had a microfiche that had his enlistment information from Vietnam, including his picture. He enlisted when he was seventeen and a half, which seems like something that shouldn't have been allowed. We got the picture and I was able to edit it a bit to made it clearer so we could actually tell it was him and see the information on the board next to him. He seemed very appreciative.

Other than that, I looked at the editor's notes for the manuscript of Milo Yiannopoulos' book Dangerous. He is currently involved in a court case against Simon & Schuster and the edited manuscript was presented as an exhibit in the case, which made it available to the public. The comments are pretty great. Someone on Twitter highlighted a bunch of them, but I think it might be worth looking through the manuscript to find all of the gems.

I spent the last little bit of work looking at the Library of Congress' Labs website. One of the things you can do on the site is look through old newspapers and highlight any pictures or illustrations as part of a crowdsourcing project. The other half of that is transcribing what the pictures and illustrations are. It's a pretty interesting idea and it's fun looking through old papers.

When I got home I caught up on YouTube videos and clicked around the internet. Tonight's rabbit hole consisted of countless funny images on Imgur. It's been awhile since that has happened and I needed it. But it is now late, and I want to sleep, so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed.

December 27, 2017

 This morning I overslept a little bit because getting out of bed was rough. Despite that, I still made it to work on time, so that was nice. On my way to work I learned that the temperature readout in my car can display negative numbers. I heard from other people that they saw colder but when I glanced down about halfway to the library it said it was -1 degrees outside. By the time I got to work it was all the way up to a +1. Toasty.

I did all the usual opening stuff. I sharpened a bunch of pencils, got more scratch paper from the basement, and I pulled some books for the staff picks display because the backup books were getting low.

I was on desk for two hours when we opened and almost that entire time was spent reading news articles. It was informative. That also included reading the local paper and I found a soup recipe that I want to try out.

After a walkthrough I started working on another personalized reading list.

When I got back from lunch I had two hours off desk and an hour and a half of that was spent going around the library and hanging up the weekly newsletter. And most of that time was actually spent talking to the new librarian for the library system in our basement. She said no one was down there with her today and I think she just needed some human contact. We hadn't really talked before other than a few words here and there so it was nice getting to know her a little better.

When I got back to the desk I had about twenty or thirty minutes before my next walkthrough so I talked to my coworkers and caught up on my notes for the day. After the walkthrough I read a couple articles and then continued working on the personalized reading list. And then I was on desk for an hour. And continued to work on the personalized reading list. With only two minutes to spare I was able to finish it again get it emailed to the patron.

We decided not to do family dinner tonight so I went home after work and had leftover pizza for dinner. It was delicious. Way better than Qdoba. While I at dinner I watched YouTube videos and slowly began to catch up with all that I have missed recently. Then I played CoD: WW2. I completed several daily orders and a few contracts. I also managed to max level during my last match, so I'll probably prestige for the third time the next time I play. It is really surprising that I have made it that far. It has been so long since I have liked a CoD game and I missed it. I might take a little bit of time off though, or at least not play so much, because my left hand needs a break.

It is now after midnight and I have fallen down a shuffling rabbit hole and an SNL Stefon rabbit hole on YouTube. So I need to record my audio journal and go to bed.

December 26, 2017

 Last night I woke up at 3:44AM because I had to go to the bathroom. Then I realized I had a headache and didn't have any ibuprofen in the bathroom so I went out to the kitchen. When I got back to my room I couldn't find my water bottle so I walked around the house looking for it, and then I put on my glasses but that didn't help. Eventually I just filled up another bottle. And when I got back to my room I remembered that I had set the other one down in my closet. My half-awake middle of the night brain.

I decided to sleep an extra thirty minutes this morning, instead of waking up and laying in bed for another thirty minutes. I think that kind of screwed me over a little. I was super slow getting around so I was already a few minutes behind when I went to leave the house. And then when I opened the garage door I saw that there was snow on the ground and it was still coming down. So I went back inside and put my boots on because Chucks aren't designed for the snow and ice.

My car only slid a couple times on my way to work, so that's not bad. And I didn't slip or slide at all on my walk to the library, thanks to the boots and the rubber/metal things I put on the bottom of my shoes. Also, I was ten minutes late to work, thanks to my slow movements getting around this morning and my slow driving on the way to work in order to avoid getting into an accident.

I didn't really do much in the first two hours of work. Overall it was an incredibly slow and quiet day at the library, but it was especially so first thing in the morning. I looked at a few news articles, talked to my coworkers, and helped the teen librarian fill her new fountain pen with ink. She got the pen for Christmas but didn't get any ink, and it's a piston filler, so she can't use cartridges. I brought in my ink so she could pick a color and then I walked her through how to fill it.

I was on desk for two hours after that. I continued reading news articles, I answered a few phone calls and chats, and I started working on a personalized reading list. I haven't done a personalized reading list in months so it took me a little while to get back into it.

I ate lunch upstairs in the cubicle because I didn't want to get all bundled up and go out in the ten degree weather. With all the bundling and unbundling and slow driving I probably would have had maybe a fifteen or twenty minute lunch, so instead I stayed at the library. I watched videos and clicked around the internet. Unfortunately I forgot my earbuds so I had to use the library headphones. They pinched my head. I don't know how some of our patrons sit at the computer all day with those headphones on.

After lunch I worked on my personalized reading list, went on a walkthrough and refilled the DVD display because someone has to, and then finished finding books for the personalized reading list. I was on desk for an hour after that and was able to compile the list and feedback form and emailed it to the patron. I then read articles and talked to my coworkers until I had yet another walkthrough. After which I spent the remainder of my day working on my DVD display sign ideas. They're still ridiculous. The Jeopardy one is called Potpourri and the other random one is tentatively called What's All The Hubbub?

Due to the fact that the temperature didn't make it into the teens today, and we're supposed to have a windchill advisory or something tonight, I texted my Dad to see how the temperature in the house was doing. He said they were covered for heaters in the two bedrooms but not in the office where he sleeps. So after work I stopped by my house to pick up my other space heater and took it over for them. They had a busy day dealing with insurance stuff and they said tomorrow or the next day a company was coming in to take all of their bedding and any other soft materials that absorbed the smoke smell and they're going to clean them. They'll also clean the carpet and the walls. I think the new furnace might be here by the end of the week as well but we'll see.

When I got home I ate leftover pizza, which was delicious, and watched YouTube videos. I'm really behind on those but I'm not too worried about catching up. I can just pretend I didn't miss any. And if I don't know what I'm missing than I can't really miss it.

After dinner I played a little bit of CoD: WW2 and had a decent time. I joined one game of War late and my team was completely getting steamrolled by the attack team. Then it was our turn to attack and we were basically getting spawn camped, which caused at least half our team to just give up and sit in spawn until the clock ran out. I came to play, though, not whine about the other team, so I kept playing. I didn't make much progress toward the objectives because it was me and one or two other guys against a whole team, but by the end of it all I was in first place, so not bad.

Now I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed because I'm tired and I open in the morning. Hooray for opening. Tomorrow I'll probably do more of the same. News articles, maybe another personalized reading list, work on a display sign or a tutorial. So many possibilities.

December 25, 2017

 This morning I went over to my Mom's around eleven o'clock. We ate food and then went down to the basement to open presents. In the last week or two my Mom got the fireplace fixed so we had that going for ambiance and warmth. I was sitting too far away to get the warmth, and the door kept getting opened to let the dogs in or out and it was freezing outside. I feel like I spent most of the day cold despite my best efforts.

I got some cool stuff. I got a green hand mixer that matches my food processor. I bought potatoes the other day so I whip up some mashed potatoes. I also got a box grater, flour sifter, and Pyrex dish to add to my kitchen collection. I got a new, bigger umbrella, which I'm pretty excited about but I don't think I'll get the chance to try it out for awhile. And, my Mom got the three pages of the magazine article I was in framed. It's pretty sweet. And, another and, my sister made me biscuits and apple butter.

After presents we ate a little bit more and then I headed home around three o'clock. I played a little more CoD: WW2, watched A Charlie Brown Christmas, and started watching Psych: The Movie. I took a break from that to iron my pants for the week and then I laid down on the end of my bed in the dark, right in front of my space heater, and zoned out for a little bit. I was the first time I had felt warm all day. It was nice.

At seven o'clock I went back over to my Mom's house for dinner. We did our traditional homemade pizza and mine was delicious as always. After dinner we sat around and talked and watched TV for awhile. I saw my first episode of Young Sheldon and it was pretty good. I might need to check it out.

I got home a little before ten o'clock, finished Psych: The Movie, and started writing this. I'm really tired so I'm not too far away from going to bed. It would be really nice if I had tomorrow off. I could use another day to sleep in and just hang around the house. Oh well. It will be a short week and then another three-day weekend. Something to look forward to.

December 24, 2017

 This morning I woke up to an inch or two of snow on the ground and a text from my Dad saying they lost their furnace to a fire early this morning. I guess one of the cats woke up my step-mom, who awoke to the smell of smoke (and the sight of smoke). She then woke up my Dad, and I think my brother and his girlfriend woke up around the same time. They looked around (including the furnace room) but couldn't find any obvious signs of fire but then they heard a popping noise or something coming from the furnace so they evacuated from the house and waited for the firefighters to show up. By the time it was all over six firetrucks showed up, which was overkill for what ended up being a small electrical fire in the furnace, but if it had been an active fire they would have needed everyone, so definitely better safe than sorry.

I got over there a little after ten o'clock and brought over one of my space heaters. They had the fireplace going, so the main area of the house was warm, but the basement and upper floor were cooler. My Dad said they see how it goes tonight but I told him they could borrow my other heater as well if they needed to because they don't think they'll be able to get the insurance process started until Tuesday at the earliest. I can easily just jack up my thermostat in the meantime.

Other than a slightly odd smell, it was a pretty normal Christmas. My aunt and grandma were there, and we all sat around and talked for awhile until the food was ready. After we ate, we opened presents. It was weird because normally I get fewer presents that everyone and I end up sitting there watching everyone else open presents. There was one year where I got far fewer and I think I ended up falling asleep before everyone else was done. But this year I actually had presents up until the end, and it was weird. I got gift cards, a couple bread pans and a bread recipe book, a book of random facts, a small glass boat, and a box of stuff (like flour, rice, detergent, Pringles, etc.). Good times.

I think I got home a little before four o'clock. I unloaded my car, got stuff put away, started my laundry, and played CoD: WW2. Then I took a break for dinner, finished watching Fred Claus and then watched The Santa Clause. I spent the rest of the evening finishing my laundry and playing CoD: WW2. I had some decent games when it came to the scoreboard but I rarely felt like I was doing well. More often than not it felt like I was having to empty entire clips into people and they could still turn on me and kill me immediately. I also seem to have come across a few daily orders that were broken. One was to pass a ball to an ally in Gridiron. I did that, and it didn't count. I had to get forty-five kills in a War match, which took me awhile because almost every game I played tonight had lopsided teams so they rarely lasted through all three stages for both teams, but then I got it and it didn't count. And lastly I had to win three shootouts in the headquarters, which I did, but it didn't count. It was pretty annoying.

It's now closing in on 1:30AM and I need need to wake up in the morning to go to my Mom's house, so I'm going to call this good and record my audio journal so I can go to bed.

December 23, 2017

 Last night I slept horribly. I'm not sure what happened. I went to bed close to three o'clock and I feel like I didn't really fall asleep until around five o'clock, I got up around ten o'clock and didn't really feel very rested.

I spent the rest of my morning and into the afternoon wrapping presents. It takes awhile because I use at least three layers, which really adds up. It also makes it really appealing to switch to only using one layer.

While I wrapped presents I watched two Christmas movies on Netflix. I finished watching Christmas Inheritance, which I watched the first few minutes of last night. Another feel-good, cheesy Christmas movie. Then I watched El Camino Christmas, which is a dark comedy (sort of) and really just depressing in general. I probably won't be adding that one into the rotation.

After the wrapping and movies I think I was part tired and part bored, so I went and laid down in bed for awhile. I drifted in and out of sleep and it was kind of nice just laying there for awhile.

For dinner I made past and when I was opening the bag of elbow macaroni it exploded and the noodles went everywhere. Somewhere less than half the bag went across the counter and on the floor. I'll probably be finding macaroni for years to come.

I played CoD: WW2 after dinner and I think a lot of kids got it for an early Christmas present. I played a few games of War and they were filled with players who had no idea what they were supposed to be doing. It made it easier in some respects but it also made things more unpredictable, which made it more difficult. Still fun though.

My friend showed up sometime after nine o'clock, right as I finished my last game of War. Perfect timing. We sat on the couch and talked for over three hours, about all the things, with Fred Claus and then music on in the background. I don't get to see her very often, or any of my other friends, so it's always nice when we get the chance to hang out for a little bit.

She left around 12:30AM and I am now watching Fred Claus for real while writing this. I'm not going to make it through the movie tonight, I'm only about halfway through, but there is always tomorrow when I get home from my Dad's house.

I'm going to record my audio journal now because I'm really tired. And hopefully I will be able to fall asleep tonight because I have to wake up to go to my Dad's. Some snowflakes were coming down when my friend left and I'm hoping none of that plans on sticking because I'm not ready for driving in the snow. Or more accurately, other people driving in the snow.

December 22, 2017

 This morning when I tried to put my garage door down as I was leaving for work, it would start to go down but then go back up. The last time this happened I just wiped the sensors off and that worked. The time before that, it was at like two or three o'clock in the morning, maybe later, and I did something that worked but I couldn't remember what that was. I ran back inside to check the internet and found the suggestion to hold down the inside button because that was supposed to override the sensors. And it worked. I think that's what I did the first time it happened, we'll see if I remember it the next time it happens. Thankfully, I was only a minute late for work.

In my first hour at work I read news articles and made a display sign for my biography display. Then I was on desk for two hours. I made a smaller version of the display sign for the backside of the display. I also helped patrons. I helped a patron get on the computer so he could look for jobs. I helped a patron find books on the Civil War, specifically ones involving Tennessee. I also helped a patron with the sound on his computer. He smelled a little like alcohol and a lot like weed. And I had that smell in my nose for the rest of the day. I ended my time on desk by starting on a display sign for my February DVD display. It's going to be ridiculous.

Over my lunch break I spliced my Mom's Christmas lights back together. One of the three wires was cut pretty close to one of the lights so I'm not sure how well the slice will hold, but I also wrapped electrical tape around everything, so hopefully it will be good for the next week or so.

When I got back from work I had a walkthrough. I helped a patron track down a book on a display and I somehow managed to pocket-dial the second phone at the reference desk with our traveling phone. It was in my jacket pocket and somehow in all my bending over to rearrange books, I hit the three digit extension for the desk phone. Craziness.

There wasn't any room at the desk when I got back so I went upstairs for about two and a half hours. I added dates to my planner, read news articles, worked a little bit on my catalog tutorial, and came up with a new design for my biography sign. The original sign consisted of a bunch of book covers randomly arranged on the sign. For the new design I created a bookshelf (because I couldn't find a good example of what I wanted online) and I arranged the books on the different shelves. I think it looks pretty good.

I was on desk for the last hour of the day and most of that time was spent finishing the new biography display sign and continued to mess with the DVD display sign. I imagine I did other things as well but I can't remember, so we'll move on.

After work I went to the mall. I'm not a fan of the mall. I first stopped at the bookstore and spent way too much money on four books. Books are ridiculously expensive when you buy them in a bookstore. I much prefer checking them out for free at the library. Then I went and got a gift certificate for my Mom before making my escape. My final stop was the grocery store to pick up a few things.

When I got home I ate dinner and started watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas. I took a break from that to play CoD: WW2. None of the games I played felt that good but I did pretty well on the scoreboard, placing first, second, and third several times, even when my team was getting steamrolled by the other team.

When I was done playing, I finished watching How The Grinch Stole Christmas, started writing this, and now I'm finishing A Christmas Prince on Netflix. I have heard a lot of talk about it but I didn't realize the actress from iZombie was in it. Some of the accents, and acting, left a lot to be desired, but it was a fun, cheesy Christmas movie. Even if I was expecting the leading lady to start eating brains at some point.

It's now after two o'clock in the morning and I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Tomorrow I'm going to wrap presents, watch more Christmas movies, maybe play video games, maybe do laundry, maybe do other things, and possibly hang out with my friend.

December 21, 2017

 Last night I got eight and a half hours of sleep and it was just what I needed. I then did the usual pre-work stuff and then... went to work.

It was kind of a boring day at work. I had two walkthroughs when I got to work and I spent the in-between time updating my homebound spreadsheets and reading news articles.

I was then off desk for an hour and looked at stuff for the Google Maps class we're doing next semester. I think it's one of the later classes in the semester but I was at a real loss as to what to do today so I played with that for awhile and read up on some of the different things you can do with it now. Somewhat productive.

I was then on desk for an hour and started making a list for my biography display next month. I decided to do exclusively biographies and memoirs of women, because why not. It's on the kiosk, which always does badly, and that's why we decided to try biographies for at least a few months on it. And I might as well have fun with it.

I went upstairs for an hour, listened to Christmas music, read some news articles, and thought more about the possible presentation in January. I don't really feel good about the idea because if I did a presentation on fake news it would kind of go against the idea of the whole event (people presenting on things they are passionate about). One of the other librarians said her husband offered to do a presentation instead, so we'll see how that goes over.

After dinner I was on desk for two hours and then off desk for two hours, but it was all blended together because that's just how nights and weekends tend to be. My night was filled with more of the same. I read news articles and worked on my biography list, which is now way longer than it needs to be because I'll probably only have to refill the display once at most. Overall, it was a very quiet, very slow night. It seemed to drag on forever.

Tomorrow is the last day before a three-day weekend and I'm not sure how much work is going to get done. I might work on an idea/sign for the DVD display, which I don't have until February but good grief I'm struggling for motivation at the moment. I need to focus.

When I got home I ate a little food, clicked around the internet, and now I'm watching a livestream while writing this. Very soon I will be recording my audio journal so I can go to bed. I am hoping that when I wake up tomorrow my neck and shoulders won't be stiff like they were today. Too much looking around at Christmas lights last night.

December 20, 2017

 This morning waking up was particularly rough. I must have been hitting a REM cycle in a weird way because it took an incredible amount of effort to get out of bed.

When I got to work my first hour was spent catching up on emails and compiling the known dates I need to add into my planner for next semester. An exciting time to be alive. I haven't actually put anything in the planner yet because I'm not quite sure how I want to do that yet. I have a few different options and I'm still on the fence.

At ten o'clock I had my monthly meeting with my boss and it went well. Short and sweet as always. I had some time to kill after that so I went upstairs to talk to the head of technical services about the books we were taking out this afternoon for one of the nursing home libraries. I then stayed up there to send a few emails, text my Dad back about Christmas, and listen to a little Christmas music.

I had a walkthrough after that and I made that hour disappear. After the walkthrough I refilled the bestsellers display. Then I went down to the basement to get the van key for our homebound delivery this afternoon, along with the four bags of books we were taking to the nursing home library. And I ended the hour by refilling the parent cart display, because it was down to eleven books. I finished that up with a couple minutes to spare before lunch.

When I got back from lunch we loaded up and went to deliver books, with a brief stop to drop off a sign we borrowed a few months ago that was never picked up. I retrieved books from one patron and delivered to two others. One of them gave me and the other librarian some chocolate for Christmas, which was pretty nice.

The nursing home ended up only needing half of the books we took out so when we got back, after giving all of the homebound books to circulation, we took the extra books back to the basement. We also had to go back out to write down the final mileage because we forgot to do that, which wasn't really a surprise because we had nearly forgotten to write down the beginning mileage. I then talked to my friend's dad for a little bit before heading back upstairs.

I eventually had a walkthrough and then spent the rest of the day sitting at the table behind our desk. I was asked if I wanted to present at an event in January, which would involved condensing my hour-long fake news presentation into about six and a half minutes. Or coming up with a completely different topic. One of the presenters may have to pull out and my boss asked if I could fill in. I'm still thinking about it. I don't really want to but I've got a month to come up with something if I say yes. I got out the laptop to look over my slides and try and get an idea of how hard it would be to pick out the highlights from the presentation. We'll see.

After work I dropped my furnace inspection bill in the mail, picked up Qdoba, and stopped at my house to grab a bag of trash before heading to my Mom's house. After dinner we drove around and looked at Christmas lights for about two and a half hours. When we got back I noticed the Christmas lights weren't on and went I went to check the cord looked like it had been cut. I looked back through the doorbell videos (because it records when it detects motion, and I was able to narrow it down to sometime between the 11^th and the 14^th. But no one ever came up and blatantly cut them, so I don't know if they got pinched somehow when my Mom was cleaning the window or if something else happened. A real-life mystery. I might see if I can fix them, at least temporarily, so they'll work until the end of the year. After that we talked a little bit and made up a plate of cookies and things that my Mom had made before heading home a little before eleven o'clock.

It is now nearing one o'clock in the morning and I've been tired for awhile now so my bed is calling my name. I'm going to hopefully record my audio journal with as little rambling as possible.

December 19, 2017

 This morning it was really foggy on the way to work. Fun fact.

I spent my first two hours at work upstairs watching the homeless webinar and taking notes, after being slightly distracted by other things. I made it through the main content but still had to get through the Q&A portion, which was almost as long as the main content.

I was then on desk for two hours. It was a really quiet day. I read news articles and read through the webinar notes I had taken so far so I could edit them and make sure they made sense.

I had a walkthrough after lunch and then went back upstairs to continue watching the webinar. I then had another walkthrough and again went upstairs to finish the webinar. I also had just enough time afterward to read a couple articles.

I was on desk for another hour and it was pretty quiet once again. Most of my time was spent reading news articles and working on my catalog tutorial. I had one phone call where I could fully hear myself slightly delayed on the other end. It was okay when I was only saying a word or two but when I got into full sentences it got really hard to focus on what I was saying. I also realized I didn't give her the correct information after I hung up, but I wasn't going to call her back because hearing myself was such an attack on my head.

At the very end of the hour a patron walked up and wanted information on two fires that happened in the same week back in the 1950s or 1960s. That is a super broad request and we have no way of searching our newspapers in a more automated fashion. They're all on microfilm and that's not something that would be in the indexes we have, so we would have to look through every page of the paper. Also, the reel he thought he may need was actually missing (along with three others) from the cabinet. Based on the indexes we have, which stop right before those reels, the assumption is that they have been sent off to be indexed by the guy who has done all of our indexing. The guy ended up deciding he would call the fire department to see if they have a record of the fire so he could get a more specific date. And if it ends up being on one of the missing reels we'll have to borrow it from the state historical society. Which will be inconvenient but it's at least an option.

For the last forty-five minutes or so I read more news articles and worked on my catalog tutorial a little bit. Progress was made on the tutorial and I'm closer to getting all of the slides done. I have no idea how many more slides I need to make but just by virtue of having created more, I'm closer to being done.

After work I meant to mail my bill for the furnace servicing, but I forgot and drove home. Kind of annoying. It's not due for a month but I like paying bills when I get them. It also allows me to forget to mail them multiple times without having to worry about them being late.

Tonight I ate dinner and watched YouTube videos. Then I played CoD: WW2. I was once again kind of a badass in the two matches of War I played. In the first one, I came in first place. And in the second game, I was first place on my team, with a total of fifty kills, twenty-three defends, seven builds, and three demolitions. I also stole all three gas cans (it was Operation Griffin) because my team wasn't getting the job done and I finally said screw it and took charge. I also almost single-handedly got a tank across the line in the first stage of the game. And had several crucial grenade kills in the final stage to get our tank across the line. And then one of my teammates who didn't really contribute much to the game typed “EZ” in the chat at the end of the game instead of “GG”. Kids are annoying.

It's now late and I want to go to bed because that's what I do at the end of each day. So I'm going to record my audio journal and keep with tradition and do the bed thing.

December 18, 2017

 This morning before work I watched One Direction music videos. I don't know why, but I was in the mood. Then, on my drive to work, I listened to Sevendust, Rage Against The Machine, and Nonpoint. I also needed that.

I spent my first two hours of work upstairs. I initially went up there just to call a couple homebound patrons. Neither of them wanted books last month and I wanted to see if they were ready for new ones. Neither of them wanted books. A third patron also doesn't want new books, so this month I'm only taking books to two patrons. Nineteen books is quite a difference from when I was taking out over sixty each month. On the plus side, it's much less stressful.

While upstairs I also listened to a little Christmas music, read news articles, and started watching a webinar about homelessness. In their intro video I saw a picture of our tech classroom. I thought that was kind of strange and sent a screenshot to my boss. I then did a generic image search and the picture was in the first row of results, but it was connected to a library in Ohio, who was using it on their website. I then did a reverse image search and found out that it is being used by dozens of different websites. It is really strange. The picture itself isn't even that great, so there must be a massive shortage of tech classroom pictures.

I was on desk for two hours before lunch and was able to finish up my homebound stuff, which involved pulling two books and making a few bookmarks. I also helped a patron print Facebook messages, read news articles, answered a couple chat questions and phone calls, and talked to my coworkers.

After lunch I three hours of walkthroughs. Well, a walkthrough at the beginning of the hour from two to four o'clock. In between the walkthroughs I read library magazines and was finally able to finish all of them. I haven't been completely done with magazines in months. It will probably be short-lived but it feels pretty good.

I also went down to the mail room to let the UPS guy in so he could pick up some boxes. And then, not long after that, a patron came up and was interested in books about the history of UPS. It was kind of crazy.

I got a free book in the mail today from the virtual library conference I kind of attended last week or the week before. It's an pre-release copy of Warcross by Marie Lu. The book actually came out in September, but a free book is a free book. And it sounds right up my alley, along the lines of .Hack and Ready Player One and Sword Art Online. I hope I actually get around to reading it.

On my way home I stopped at Walgreens and Jo-Ann, and then got gas. While I ate dinner I watched YouTube videos, and then I played a little bit of CoD: WW2. I played a few rounds of Hardcore TDM because one of my daily orders was to get fifteen shotgun kills. I thought it would be easier in a Hardcore match because I would be more likely to get one-shot kills. I did horribly because I kept getting big maps that weren't very well suited for shotguns. I did have the thought that Hardcore would be a good place to farm one-shot kills for sniper rifle camos. I don't know if I still have any of those to get. Anyway, after that I played a game of War on Operation Griffin and redeemed myself by coming in first place. Over both rounds I had sixty-one kills, thirty-one defends, four builds, five demolitions, and I returned the gas to the tank one time. At one point I also got at least a triple kill with one clip on my SMG. It was awesome. It was also surprising because when we started the game, and until the middle of the second section, my team only had three people on it and the other team had five or six. It felt good.

I ended the night by watching Elf, which is my first Christmas movie of the year (not counting Psych: The Movie. I figure I can binge them this weekend but I wouldn't mind trying to get some of them in throughout the week.

And now, we're creeping up on midnight, so I'm going to record my audio journal and go to bed.

December 17, 2017

 This morning I woke up with the same headache I went to bed with last night. That's always fun.

I spent the morning watching YouTube videos and AFKing in Terraria again. I also clicked around the internet. I might have been researching things but I can't remember what.

I did laundry for the first time today with my new washer and dryer. And I really went for it because along with my clothes I also washed towels and sheets. The washer is weird because you put the detergent in first. I'm used to it having it's own slot or just pouring it on the clothes. My dryer is also really short, but I like both the washer and dryer. They are both pretty quick and they seem to get the job down quite well. I also managed to put new sheets on my bed and ironed all my pants for the week, so it was a pretty productive day in respect to clothes and sheets.

I watched American Assassin and Dunkirk this afternoon and this evening. American Assassin was good but also super depressing with the opening on the beach. I have learned that it is based on a series of books (the first of which sounds a lot like the plot of White House Down) so there is potential to turn this into a series of movies. I could see it being a new Jason Bourne. I also liked Dunkirk. Also kind of depressing but that was to be expected. I liked how the timeline jumped around so you got to see the same events from various perspectives.

After Dunkirk I played a little bit of CoD: WW2. I didn't have any particularly good games but I finished a contract and a daily order and I had fun. I finally made a class for the gamemodes that involve me trying to capture a point or in War when I'm trying to stand next to a tank. There is a perk or basic training or whatever it's called that allows you to take more explosive damage and when you pick up enemy grenades that have been thrown, it resets their timer, so you actually have time to throw them back. Most people cook their grenades a little bit and I have never been able to successfully throw one back without it blowing up in my hand or my face, neither of which are good. I also got to the fourth level of the Armored class which also allows you to take less explosive damage (and I think the level before that is less fire damage, or vice versa). It is really nice and saves me a little bit of the annoyance of running across the map, jumping on a point, and immediately getting blown up. That still happens, but sometimes I'm able to stay alive just long enough to capture the point, plant the bomb, or get the tank across the line.

I've been distracted again by 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown but now I'm going to record my audio journal so I can go to bed because it is after 11:30PM and I want to go to bed.

December 16, 2017

 There isn't much to write about today, which is good because it is late and I'm tired and I have a headache.

This morning I woke up and played CoD: WW2. I took a break from that after the servers went down. After that I switched over to afk-ing in both Tera and Terraria. Yesterday started the Christmas event in Terraria so I'm collecting presents, because why not. I think after lunch I actually played Tera. I ran a couple dungeons and played in the battleground a couple times. I leveled up a bit but I'm not sure I'm going to make it to level sixty-five. I'm not sure when the leveling event is over but I'm not terribly interested in this one and the gunner doesn't feel like it does much damage, so I don't feel like I'm really contributing to the team.

For dinner I roasted vegetables and made rice. Delicious as always.

After dinner I played more CoD: WW2. I wanted to fulfill a contract that required me to play twenty-five matches within eight hours. I started it this morning but the server thing happened, so I restarted it tonight. I did a bit of research and found that Gun Game is the quickest gamemode in the game, with each game lasting around six or seven minutes. So I played twenty-five rounds of Gun Game. That's a lot. I think I managed to win two of the games and got in the top three a few times. I don't like that there seems to be a lot of dumb luck involved with a win. It's also really easy to spawn camp, which I think a lot of people do (including myself) because they're predictable, and kind of takes the fun out of it. Oh well. I ended the night with a couple games of War because I wanted someone more fun after so many rounds of Gun Game. My team sucked both times, and the other team was really good both times, but I still managed to get in second place, so I'm happy with that.

I got distracted by 8 Out Of Ten Cats Does Countdown and it is now after two o'clock in the morning. I need to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. Tomorrow, I'm going to do laundry, and probably do other things as well.

December 15, 2017

 This morning I woke up early, relative to when I went to bed, and then got ready with plenty of time before my health coach call. The health coach was really nice but I also question the usefulness of this whole endeavor. I'll admit my diet has gotten worse since I got the news that I needed a health coach because I was annoyed. In the past year my diet got much better and my health screening results improved from last year, but then they said I needed a health coach, so I kind of said screw it. The call this morning lasted less than fifteen minutes and really the only thing that came out of it was me saying I would start exercising. I already had plans to start exercising, before the health coach thing, so really I just have more work to put in because of how much I have neglected my diet in the last few weeks. Oh well.

I got to work about five minutes early today thanks to light traffic. I was on desk for two hours and most of that time was spent working on my homebound lists. Exciting stuff. I also filled out a request form for an outreach event in January.

After that I was off desk for three hours, with a walkthrough in the middle. I spent all of that time sitting at the table behind the desk reading library magazine and I made serious progress. I think at the peak I was around fifteen magazines and now I'm down to just five.

My night went by pretty quickly. I had a walkthrough right after getting back from and then continued working on my homebound lists. In the next hour I had two walkthroughs. After the first I went and pulled books for the one patron I had picked all the books for that I'm fairly certain I'll be delivering to next week. I'm not sure about two of the other patrons, because they didn't want books last month, and the patron who emails me her list hasn't done that yet. After the second walkthrough I pulled a bunch of books for the Bestsellers display. I was running around that entire hour and it was eight o'clock before I knew it.

For the last hour of work I checked out the homebound books I had pulled, updated my spreadsheet for that patron, made and printed the bookmarks, and got those put in the books and got the books put in bags. And then it was time to leave.

When I got home I played CoD: WW2. They have added the Gun Game gamemode, which I really enjoyed in one of the old Battlefield games. There was a daily order today to get in the top three, three times in Gun Game. Getting in the top three just once seemed ridiculous but I figured I'd give it a shot. The first game went horribly so I ducked out and went and played War for awhile. When I came back to it, I won two games in a row. It was a complete fluke but it felt awesome. It's nice feeling good at the game every now and then. The third game (the fourth overall if we're being technical) was more on par. I think I came second-to-last, mostly because I couldn't kill anyone with the sawed-off shotgun. I shot a ridiculous number of people, with incendiary shell no less, and they just wouldn't die. On top of that, I got melee'd three times, which knocks you back a level. It was rough. I still needed one more top three so I played one more game and somehow managed to squeak into third place. I'm hoping this is a gamemode that sticks around and isn't just an every now and then sort of thing.

I've now been writing this for quite awhile thanks to YouTube videos, but I'm going to wrap things up so I can record my audio journal and go to bed. I'm looking forward to not leaving the house this weekend.

December 14, 2017

 This morning I did all the normal morning things and then I went to work. I spent the first two hours upstairs and I didn't really accomplish much. I read articles, listened to music, and watched a few videos. One of them was about how they used VR to create a 3D model of Auschwitz to show that a Nazi security guard couldn't have been ignorant to what was happening at the camp. The guard was convicted of being an accessory to the murder of 170,000 people and was sentenced to five years in prison (he was 94 years old at the time). He appealed the conviction but died before it went back to trial.

I had walkthroughs after that and in between spent my time sitting at the table behind the desk and looking at library magazines. I also had a conversation with the teen library and we decided to cancel the two classes we couldn't find instructors for. It kind of sucks but we're both dealing with other things and it wasn't worth the stress of trying to track someone down.

I was off desk for an hour after lunch and I sent some emails, printed my timesheet, and looked at library magazines.

Then I was on desk for two hours and it was a little overwhelming for a little while. For over an hour I had a chat with someone trying to reserve a room. It would have been maybe a five minute conversation in person or a ten minute conversation on the phone, but in chat, over an hour. It was crazy and it was constant for that whole time. While that was happening I helped a couple patrons with printing, answered the phone, reviewed some instructions one of the other librarians wrote about room reservation, and looked up and emailed the history of a couple street names to someone who sent a request last night. I think the streets were actually named after the person making the request and his father. Interesting.

I needed some non-computer time after all that so I spent the last hour of work back at the table looking at library magazines. I think I finished two magazines. Progress.

When I got home I played a little CoD: WW2 while my dinner cooked, watched YouTube videos while I ate dinner, played more CoD: WW2, and now I'm back to being distracted by YouTube videos while trying to write this.

I don't go into work until eleven o'clock tomorrow but I have to wake up early for the health coach call. But I'll get to sleep in on Saturday, so I'm looking forward to that.

December 13, 2017

 This morning I had to wake up earlier than I would have liked after only about six hours of sleep. But I did get up, ironed a couple pairs of pants, and got ready. I ended up getting up earlier than I needed to but I figured better safe than sorry because I didn't want to miss the furnace guy.

He showed up shortly before 9:30AM and it didn't take him too long to do his thing. He said my it only needed a little bit of cleaning and he said it looked like my furnace was pretty new. Once less thing to worry about.

After he left I played CoD: WW2 for awhile. I fear the player-base is already disappearing. To be fair it was a Wednesday morning and most PC gamers were probably at work or school, but it is still a little disappointing. But I got a few good games out of it.

I got to work at noon and spent the first hour upstairs because there wasn't any room downstairs. I sent a few emails, caught up on my time sheet, read a few news articles, and wrote kudos for my coworkers.

I was on desk for an hour after that and helped a couple patrons with printing, answered one question in chat, and worked on my homebound lists. A productive hour. I was then off desk for an hour and spent that time reading through our emergency quick guide to get ready for our meeting, and looked through a library magazine.

Our department meeting lasted the entire two hours and we covered a lot of information. I spent most of it freezing because the air conditioner was on for some reason and it was blowing right down my collar.

Because of the meeting I had my dinner break at five o'clock instead of four o'clock, which is a much better dinner time but it was also weird. When I got to my Mom's house I helped her troubleshoot her TV because apparently Dish had been acting up since last night and she was only able to watch three channels. Turns out we just needed to unplug the main receiver thing.

The real weird part of a five o'clock dinner was driving back to the library in the dark. It felt way later than six o'clock. Or super early. Just an observation. The good part of going to dinner an hour later was that it made the rest of the night go by that much faster.

I had two back-to-back walkthroughs when I got back to work and then the rest of the night was just hanging out at the desk. I helped a patron figure out a printing issue and then spent most of the night working on homebound stuff. And then near the end of the night I kind of got lost on Novelist and Amazon just looking at books I was interested in reading. I also went upstairs before we closed to bag up all the treats (because today was treat day) but two circulation people were just finishing up the process. So I just stood there and talked to them while they finished up.

When I got home I watched a bunch of YouTube videos and eventually got around to writing this. And I've been distracted by the videos. But I've finally reached the end of this and now I can record my audio journal and go to bed. Hooray for bed.

December 12, 2017

 Well December is flying by. Once again another month is disappearing.

This morning I woke up after about six and a half hours of sleep, laid in bed for awhile, got up and ironed my pants, got ready, and went to work. I hit the lights just right on my way and got to the library a few minutes early even though I left a few minutes late. Not bad.

I did all the usual opening stuff, including sharpening a bunch of pencils, which I haven't done in quite awhile because I had sharpened all the pencils we had.

When we opened I was on desk for two hours. I was supposed to have the first two hours off desk but one of the librarians called in sick so the schedule had to be shifted around a bit. I spent that time reading news articles, re-formatting my room schedule template because I got confused with the saving of it last time apparently. I also got the briefest of starts on homebound stuff. I had an uneventful walkthrough after that and eventually went to dinner.

After lunch I went upstairs for two hours and read the last two chapters of the book we have been slowly reading and discussing at our department meetings. It's a good book with some good information but I'll be honest, it has taken us so long to get through it that I have forgotten pretty much all of it. Including what I read today. That might say more for my memory than the amount of time it has taken to read the book.

I was on desk for an hour following that and that hour completely disappeared. At one point I looked up and thirty-eight minutes had gone by and it felt like maybe five minutes had gone by. It was really weird. I helped a couple patrons through email, read a couple articles, and kind of worked on my homebound stuff.

I ended the day with a walkthrough. After the walkthrough I sent an email, made a brief post on our department blog, and started looking through another library magazine from my stack. And then the day was over.

After work I stopped by Target to get peanut butter and tortillas, and then headed home. With my night I ate dinner, watched YouTube videos, and played CoD: WW2. I encountered another blatant hacker. It was on Operation Neptune and he was headshotting people through all objects, with pistols and smgs from across the map. He was bragging about how many times he has been banned, which is kind of annoying because you'd hope once would be enough. My team stopped playing, reported him, and then just chatted amongst ourselves while we waited for time to run out. Other than that experience, I had a lot of good games. I got in the top three several times, which is not a frequent occurrence.

It is now after 12:30AM because I've been distracted by 8 Out Of 10 Cats while writing this. I don't work until noon tomorrow but I have to wake up early for furnace servicing. Tomorrow is going to be a long day.

December 11, 2017

 Last night I was watching a streamer who I subbed to a week or so ago. She plays music and at least when I have been watching, usually has around 100 people watching. She was going to get off for the night but decided to play a couple more songs. And then someone raided/hosted her with around 1100 viewers. And it was magical. She went from being pretty low-key and then the raid happened and she flipped the switch. A consummate performer, she rolled right into a high energy, multi-layered song with her guitar and looper, and the chat exploded. She held over 1000 people for that song and she maintained over 500 for several songs after that. I've joined in on raids before but I've never been hanging out in a smaller channel when such a big raid hits them. And I've never seen someone capitalize on a raid to such an impressive degree. By the end of it she had gained over 330 new followers and around twenty or thirty new subscribers. It was cool to watch.

Last night I got seven hours of sleep, because that's apparently what I needed. I spent my morning playing CoD: WW2 and I got in a match with the most blatant hacker I have ever seen. He had a diamond LMG and he pretty much spent the whole game just standing the middle of the map, turning in circles, and shooting everyone through walls on the other side of the map. They ended up going sixty-four and one. Maybe the one death was an attempt to make it look realistic. Tonight I got in another match, on the same map, with a different hacker. This time they were on my team and it really took the fun out of the game. We basically just ran around and captured the points in Hardpoint to get the game over with, all while chatting with the other team and apologizing for having such a horrible teammate.

After lunch I went over to my Mom's house to install her new video doorbell. It was kind of a pain in the butt. First I had to figure out which breaker the doorbell was on. You'd think it was on the Entry breaker, but it was on the Kitchen breaker. Maybe because the doorbell itself (not the outside button) shares a wall with kitchen. Regardless, I got it figure out so I didn't shock myself. The hardest part was getting the angled base plate things level and screwed into the wall. I had to use two of them stacked on top of each other, one to angle the doorbell up and the other to angle it to the left. And there wasn't a hole to screw threw, there was a slot, which I guess is convenient if you need to make it slightly off-center or something, but it my case it was just annoying trying to get everything lined up and level. But I managed it, and I got it all set up with the app, and it works. When it senses motion outside within your specified range, you get a notification on your phone and you can go to the live video to see what is outside.

The most annoying part of the entire process by far, however, was that I put the dogs outside so I could keep the front door open, and two out of the three kept scratching at the door to be let in. This happened persistently at random intervals for the entire time I was working. So annoying.

A quick aside. My laptop just shut off randomly and I lost a paragraph. Not sure what happened but let's hope it was a fluke and won't happen again. Moving on.

My Mom got back right as I was finishing so I was able to download the app on her phone and show her how to use it. She seemed pretty happy with it and I think the learning curve is pretty small, even though the app isn't perfect.

When I got home I played a little CoD: WW2 before making dinner, which consisted of rice and roasted vegetables. While the vegetables roasted I played a few more rounds of CoD: WW2 because why not. While I ate I watched YouTube videos. I'm really behind after dog-sitting last week because I didn't watch a lot of videos last week. I probably won't be caught up for awhile.

After dinner I played more CoD: WW2 and by the end of the night I was able to prestige for the second time. I played a few games after that and it was a bit rough not having the loadouts I am used to. I need to jump into War and gain some quick levels. Even though they seemed to have nerfed the points I still think it's one of the quickest ways to level up. And it's fun.

It's now eleven o'clock and I need to record my audio journal and get to bed. I open tomorrow morning, which I'm not really looking forward to, but I'm off at five o'clock, so that's something to look forward to.

December 10, 2017

 I got a full eight hours of sleep last night and it was pretty great. I woke up feeling rested, which is a rare occurrence. I spent my morning watching videos and clicking around the internet before getting reading, eating lunch, and leaving for work at 12:05PM, which was the correct time, unlike yesterday.

I got to work slightly early and was able to count the drawer fairly quickly thanks to the fact that I got all the change yesterday. There was actually quite a bit extra that I had to put in the safe. After that I turned on a bunch of computers and checked email before we opened.

We were doing the exam thing again today so I made coffee. It sat there all day. No one drank it. When I was cleaning it up I tried it again. It's not gross but it's not good. It still smells really good but it's not something I want to acquire a taste for. I also singed my tongue a little bit. Not to the point of burning it but to the point of being aware of it. Kind of annoying.

Most of my day was spent working on my catalog tutorial, with occasional breaks to read news articles or make a few formatting tweaks to my room schedule template. I made decent progress on the tutorial. I'm almost through the slides covering tips for searching and then I'll move onto account stuff. I think this will definitely be a tutorial that needs to be split up into at least a couple because it's covering a lot of information.

And that was my day at work, along with occasionally helping a patron and talking to coworkers. Most of the day went my excruciatingly slowly. There were a couple times where I thought I was going to fall asleep at the desk, and I wasn't even tired, it was just warm and quiet and nothing was going on.

After work I went to my Mom's house and we went to the Chinese buffet for her belated birthday dinner. My sister's husband apparently found someone throwing up in the bathroom sink and I'm hoping it was related to a previous illness and not something they ate at the buffet.

We went back to the house afterward for cake, ice cream, and presents. My sister also gave my Mom and I her yearly homemade Christmas card and it is really impressive. Among other things, the front is embossed with snowflakes. It's cool.

I got home sometime after nine o'clock and spent the rest of the night watching 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, YouTube videos, and livestreams, and clicking around the internet. I thought about playing CoD: WW2 but I didn't. I'll play tomorrow. Probably. Before and/or after I go install my Mom's new doorbell.

December 9, 2017

 Last night I slept with both my space heaters in my bedroom and it was quite cozy. Despite not wanting to leave my bed (and leaving my house later than normal because I was got it in my head that I was still at my Mom's house, in terms of when I needed to leave), I still made it to work on time. The counting of the drawer went fairly well but I did end up requesting sixty dollars in change because they ended up with a surplus of twenty dollar bills yesterday.

For the first two hours after we opened I read news articles and tweaked the room schedule template. The tweaking was because my coworker accidentally saved over it so the blank template was no longer a blank template. I ended up having it saved with the latest update in one of my folders but the first two backups I checked were older versions, so I decided to redo the latest edits. And then I found the right file. But I ended up keeping some of what I came up with today.

Later in the day I worked on the template even more. This time I added a few more sheets to cover the weekend room schedule, which includes Saturday and Sunday on one page. It requires running two reports, pasting each on their own sheet in Excel, and doing the same sort of editing on a third sheet where all the information is imported. The best part of this round of editing, is that I came up with a few different combinations of the TODAY formula that will, in theory, automatically update the date line for the printed schedule. People kept forgetting to manually update the date line so I figured I would automate it. The regular daily one updates the day of the week as well as the date. Saturday does the same and then Sunday does the day and date for tomorrow (because we print them on Saturday).

The other big chunk of my day was spent working on my catalog tutorial. I made progress. Slow progress. We'll see if I can get anywhere with it tomorrow. I'm kind of tired of tutorials. But I'm in charge of making a whole bunch of them. Hooray.

We had a passive thing today for studying, an “exam cram” because finals are next week. There wasn't really anything set up though or instructions left by the person in charge of it, so we didn't really do anything. And then while I was taking my lunch break upstairs, a patron asked about the coffee that was mentioned on the calendar. When I got back I made a pot, put it out, and then no one drank it. It just sat there for five hours. I might make some tomorrow at the beginning of the day and we'll see if it goes over any better.

After work I went to the grocery store. The parking lot was packed but I kept my head down and made it out quickly. When I got home I ate dinner and watched highlights from 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown because that show is great. I'm currently be distracted by an episode. And before that I was distracted by a different episode. It has taken me forever to write this.

I played more CoD: WW2 tonight and it was pretty fun. There have been updates recently and they have definitely tweaked some things. Some guns seem worse, others seem like laser beams. I also think they buffed the turret guns on tanks, or as someone in game chat put it, they nerfed the fun. I think they also reduced the overall points for the War game mode. I feel like I was getting a lot more last week. But like everything else, it could all be in my head.

It's now after 12:30AM and I need to record my audio journal so I can go to bed. I work at noon and then after work we're going to have a belated dinner for my Mom's birthday. But none of that can happen unless I go to bed, so let's get a move on.

December 8, 2017

 I got eight hours of sleep last night which was pretty great. When I got up I got ready, fed the dogs, and then put air in my tires. As I was decompressing my compressor I got a call from the delivery people. It was just after ten o'clock but they said they were about twenty or twenty-five minutes away. So I finished up with the compressor and headed to my house.

When I got there I moved the couch and footstool a bit, wanting to provide as much of a walkway as possible, and I turned on the lights in the basement. Then I listened to music and read a book. The delivery guys showed up around eleven o'clock, so about thirty minutes after they said they'd be there, but still an hour before the 12:00PM – 4:00PM window I had originally received. Not bad. And it only took them about half an hour to get the washer and dryer moved in and set up. They carried them in with an interesting strap and harness setup, with the appliance balanced on straps between them, it was pretty cool. And now I have a washer and dryer. It's pretty exciting.

After they left I called and scheduled a service appointment for my furnace next Wednesday. When I got to my house this morning it was forty-seven degrees inside. That's a little ridiculous and I'm kind of glad I've been staying at my Mom's this week during the really cold weather. I also called to cancel/renew my XM subscription for the regular discounted rate. Why pay twenty dollars a month when you can pay five dollars a month. And this time I got it for six months instead of five, so I'm good until June.

I did laundry when I got back to my Mom's. I know I have a washer and dryer now but I still need to get detergent and dryer sheets. I thought about going today but when I was walking backwards with my air compressor I nearly tripped, which caused my right foot to go up and my toes to flex, slamming my broken toe into the top of my shoe. I was then back to limping and didn't want to walk all the way through the store like that.

I spent the rest of my afternoon watching the original Star Trek series, clicking around the internet, and working on my texting spreadsheet. For dinner I decided to pick up a sandwich from Jimmy John's, a drink from Sonic, and fries, soft pretzel sticks, and a frozen hot chocolate from Dairy Queen. Too much food, and I still feel it hours later. But I'll survive. While I ate dinner I watched Psych: The Movie for a second time. I really enjoy it and it's definitely going into my Christmas rotation.

After the movie I packed up all my stuff because my Mom said she would be back home by midnight. Once I was all loaded up, I headed home. One of the neighbors' cars was parked particularly far over the center of the driveway and I ended up having to park in the middle of my driveway. So, the first thing I did after unloading my car was write out the note (which I drafted earlier this evening) and put it in an envelope under their windshield wiper. Hopefully it will survive the night so they'll be able to read it and, fingers crossed, they'll start parking fully on their side of the driveway.

When that was done, I tried to play CoD: WW2 but it said something about corrupt files and having to reset my rank and wipe all my unlocks. Umm, no thank you. I manually downloaded all the updates, and while I verified the local files I recorded my audio journal. Then I restarted the computer and after all that, I was able to get into the game. I was really glad I didn't have to go back to the beginning because I'm creeping up on reaching second prestige. If I can get there before Christmas I'll probably go for it because there will be an influx of new players so I won't have to worry about the player-base disappearing immediately after I prestige and go back to rank one.

It's now close to midnight and I need to go to bed because I have to work in the morning. I'm not looking forward to waking up but maybe I can have a productive day.

December 7, 2017

 So, last night I think I broke my toe. I was going to turn my fan on and instead I kicked the fan cord. Really hard for some reason. And then I reached out to grab the door frame because I was about to fall over in pain, but when I reached out I immediately got a muscle cramp along the full length of the left side of my back. So then I was hopping around on my left foot and shaking my left arm around trying to get the cramp to go away while cursing my hurt toe. This morning when I woke up the middle toe on my right foot was slightly purple. After being vertical for awhile it became very purple. I haven't looked at it since this morning but I'm slightly worried to see what it looks like now.

Anyway, this morning I woke up way too early, got ready, fed the dogs, and made it to my haircut by 7:57AM. Three minutes early ain't too bad for being so early in the morning. Before I left I was able to utilize my height and help the lady who cuts my hair by hiding some power cables for her Christmas lights that were hanging down from the top of her cabinets.

When I got back to my Mom's house I took a nap, watched Doctor Who, took another shower to get rid of the stray hairs that inevitably end up everywhere after a haircut, and then ate lunch and watched Star Trek: Voyager and YouTube videos.

I had two walkthroughs, thirty minutes apart, when I got to work. It was a real pain in the foot. And I ended up walking in such away that my right knee was popping with almost every step. It was annoying. But I didn't have another walkthrough the rest of the day so that was nice.

I was on desk for two hours after that and did things. I continued tweaking the room schedule printout template because it seems like a thing I'll be doing for the rest of time. I also got a confirmation for another adulting instructor. And I learned that I the same group wouldn't be able to help with the plumbing class. I think I've exhausted the non-profit options so we might need to discuss business options. Along with that stuff I also helped a patron with microfilm and tracked down an obscure Moody Blues DVD that is only available through PBS, so it's $84. I think PBS would make so much more money if they actually priced their stuff realistically.

After dinner I spent an hour reading library magazines and managed to finish two of them. A decent accomplishment but I still have twelve magazines in my stack. Slowly but surely. I also went down to the basement because we got a call from youth services that there were people down there, and no one was supposed to be down there. When I got there I didn't see anyone but I did find a puppet. Evidence that youth services wasn't lying just to get me to go down to the basement.

Then I was on desk for two hours. I got a new possible date for the library card outreach, so that's good, and then I spent most of my time working on my catalog tutorial. I started it awhile ago but it all became obsolete when we updated our catalog. So I spent my night redoing all of the screenshots. I almost caught back up to where I was before. A lot of work in an attempt to get back to square one. Good times.

I took a little break in the middle of that to take a look at the newly rearranged tech center classroom. It's not done but it's an impressive start. They got rid of the back two rows and moved the other rows forward to make room for a big table in the back. This will make the room a lot more versatile than just a computer room.

After work I went straight to my house so I could record my audio journal. There were four cars in the neighbor's driveway (two of which were over the center line) and one in the street. One of the reasons for picking this house was to avoid all the college kids on the other side of town. But they've found me.

When I got back to my Mom's house I started writing this and watching Psych: The Movie. It has taken me just short of forever to write this because I've been distracted by the movie. It is so good. My expectations were really high and it has exceeded all of them.

December 6, 2017

 Last night it took me forever to fall asleep. So instead of getting eight hours of sleep I got closer to seven. That was unfortunate.

When I woke up this morning, I got ready, let the dogs out and fed them, ate breakfast and made lunch, and watched Doctor Who before going to work. I also realized why my health coach appointment was messed up. I originally thought it was at 9:00AM tomorrow but when I logged in to acknowledge it the calendar thing said 3:00PM. I sent an email about that last night or the day before and I got a new email this morning with a time for next Friday. It was for 9:00AM according to the email I opened that had been forwarded to my main account from my more “professional” one. When I opened the actual email, it said 3:00PM. Then I noticed that the timezone was wrong in my “professional” account, and that was causing the time discrepancy. I sent another email this morning to apologize for the confusion, and sent a screenshot with the two calendar views side-by-side just to prove to the lady, and to myself, that I wasn't crazy.

It was a weird morning at work because I was only there for an hour and a half before lunch. I talked to my coworkers, checked my email, had a walkthrough, and maybe did some other things I don't remember. And then I went to lunch at noon.

When I got back to work I was on desk for two hours. I spent most of that time looking at exhibits for the virtual conference I signed up for today. That led to a lot of previews and samples for graphic novels and comics. Not a bad way to spend my time on desk. I also helped a patron with the copier and made a state library card for another patron. And, I continued trying to schedule an outreach event in February for library card sign-up at the university library. The university librarian picked one of the dates I sent him but then circulation pointed out two conflicts I hadn't thought about, one of which was on the day the university librarian picked, so I sent off another email with updated availability.

I was off desk for an hour after that and then had a walkthrough. I continued looking at the virtual conference stuff, read news articles, ran around a little bit looking for a key to one of our meeting rooms, and created a Christmas desktop wallpaper because the other librarians have Christmas-themed wallpapers and I did. On one of the computers I still have a big picture of a vegetarian burger as my desktop so I edited that by adding holly, tinsel, Christmas ornaments, and a gingerbread man. I'm thinking of maybe adding a new layer or randomness to it each day.

After work I went to my Mom's house to feed the dogs and then I came home to eat dinner myself and watch videos. I just recorded my audio journal and as I finished watching videos and typed up this entry.

Now I'm going to head back to my Mom's house. On my way over here there were some snow flurries. I didn't realize it was supposed to snow today. I'm hoping it's not something that sticks around. I'm good without snow.

December 5, 2017

 My alarm clock went off at 6:30AM this morning but I stayed in bed until after 7:00AM because my bed was warm and my room was cold. Also, I miss my old bed. It is really hard, and there is a spring that kind pokes me occasionally, but when I sit up in the morning my back doesn't hurt. My new bed is firm but also cushiony, and when I sit up in the morning it feels like my spine has to settle back into place.

When I finally got out of bed, I got ready, and then headed upstairs to feed the dogs. I then ate breakfast as I made my lunch, because that's what I do, and then watched Star Trek: Voyager and Doctor Who until it was time to go to work.

I was off desk for two hours when I first got to work and spent that time reading news articles and I started converting my homebound spreadsheets to the new layout. I had to tweak the new layout a little bit as I went but I'm happy with it.

After a walkthrough I worked on the room schedule printout. I had to edit the report so that it will include events, and then I made a few changes to my template, trying to make it make more sense. Slowly but surely.

I had an hour off desk after work and went upstairs to continuing working on my homebound spreadsheets. And then I was on desk for two hours. The first part of that was spent walking one of the other librarians through the updated room schedule template. Kudos to my coworkers for trying to figure out the very convoluted template designed to make things simpler.

The rest of my time on desk was spent finishing the conversion to my new homebound spreadsheet layout, and tweaking my room schedule printout template, yet again. I think I'm done with it at this point but we'll see how it goes when people actually have to start using it.

I was off desk for my last hour at work and I decided to walk around a little bit because I had been sitting at the desk and playing with spreadsheets for two hours. I rearranged my parent cart display and then ran into my co-presenter from the conference. We chatted a little bit and then I headed back to the desk and sat at our table and read a little bit of a library magazine. I'm so far behind on reading library magazines.

As I was about to leave I noticed a wasp, just hanging out on the exit door leading to the backstairs. So I went back to the desk, grabbed our spider cup, and caught a wasp. I then released it outside and I was really glad that it didn't attack me because it was buzzing around in the cup and I have no idea if I'm allergic to wasps.

After work I got gas and then went to my Mom's house to let the dogs out and feed them dinner. And then I came home to eat dinner and watch YouTube videos. I just finished recording my audio journal and soon I'll be heading back to my Mom's house.

Tomorrow I don't go in until 10:30AM so I'll get to sleep in a little bit. I'm looking forward to that.